The true test of government technology isn’t how it performs on an ordinary day. It’s what happens when something goes wrong.

Cyberattacks, natural disasters and other disruptions can quickly put both information and essential services at risk. To maintain continuity, agencies need to think beyond traditional cybersecurity and connect security, information governance and recovery planning, ensuring trusted information remains available to the people who need it, even during a crisis.

During a webinar hosted by Laserfiche and Government Technology, speakers discussed how agencies can prevent service disruption and build trust with residents.

Security is much harder to bolt on than to build in.

When agencies wait until after technology decisions have been made to address security, they risk creating gaps, delays and additional work. Bringing security teams into the process earlier allows agencies to establish access requirements and other safeguards from the start.

Encryption, configurable access controls and audit logs help agencies safeguard sensitive information, while geographic redundancy supports recovery when disruptions occur. Clear agreements with cloud providers are equally important, ensuring both sides understand who is responsible for security, continuity and recovery.

A backup can restore information, but it doesn’t necessarily restore a service.

Government employees may also rely on identity systems, integrations, vendors, approvals and even manual steps to get essential work done. If any one of those dependencies is unavailable, restoring a repository or server may not be enough to get services running again.

“Resilience is not what the architecture promises. It’s what the organization can demonstrate under pressure,” said Andy MacIsaac, senior strategic solutions manager for government and education at Laserfiche.

Governments know they need to strengthen governance for data, AI, and critical systems and solutions. But that is challenging when information is scattered across repositories and departments follow different processes. Every additional system creates another place to manage permissions, apply retention rules and produce evidence for audits.

Agencies can simplify that environment with common processes for classifying information, routing work, enforcing access and retention requirements, and preserving an audit trail. Consistency doesn’t mean treating every piece of information the same; agencies can apply stronger controls where sensitivity or risk requires them.

Governance only works when employees can work with it. If the approved way to find, access or share information creates too much friction, staff may turn to faster — and potentially less secure — workarounds. Effective governance should make the secure path the practical path.

A unified approach to information management can help agencies put these principles into practice without adding complexity to employees. By connecting information across departments and existing systems, agencies can automate routine workflows, apply security and retention policies consistently, maintain complete audit trails, and give authorized staff reliable access to the records they need. The result is less administrative burden, fewer information silos and a stronger foundation for compliance, continuity and responsive public service.

“I think everyone is trying to strengthen their governance right now,” said Joe Morris, chief innovation officer at eRepublic. “The challenge is doing so without adding more tools or administrative work.”

Resilience doesn’t have to begin with an agencywide transformation. It can start with one service that simply cannot afford to fail.

To get started, choose an essential service and run an information resilience drill around it. Identify the information required to deliver it, who needs access, which systems and vendors it depends on, and what happens when one of those dependencies becomes unavailable.

Then test the recovery path with the people who actually deliver the service. Can they access the information they need? Do integrations and handoffs still work? Can they continue serving residents within an acceptable timeframe?

The exercise turns resilience from an abstract goal into something agencies can see and improve. It should produce a clear picture of where the gaps are, who is responsible for addressing them and what needs to change.

Just as importantly, it creates a repeatable approach. Agencies can take what they learn from one essential service and apply it to the next, building resilience one critical process at a time.

Hear directly from Liana, Joe and Andy on how to modernize large-scale, mission-critical governmental operations with governed agentic AI and enterprise security.